In the seventies I bought a gold scarab at the gift shop at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco where they had the Tutankhamen exhibit.Underneath the scarab are hieroglyphs and I have always wanted to know what it says.Can anybody read it?Thanks for your time.

Watching the scarab in the upright position all the signs can be recognized.

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There are two signs in the top row, three in the middle one and one in the bottom one.The left sign in the middle row is a cartouche with the throne name of king Tuthmosis III (c. 1504 – 1450), Men-kheper-re, meaning something like “Permanent is the form of Re.” It can be seen in the picture that follows (from the interior of a painted shrine dedicated by Tuthmosis III to Hathor) just above the incense bowl that the king holds in his left arm.

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The left sign in the top row is most probably the ideogram of god Re holding in his hands the symbol of life. The right one is that of the recumbent dog of god Anubis wearing the double crown.To the right of the cartouche is the triple phonogram /nfr/ meaning “good,” “beautiful,” “fair”, and to the right of it the god Amun is shown wearing his double feathered crown (in the picture above he can be seen seating in his throne).The sign in the bottom row is the double phonogram /nb/ meaning “any,” “every,” “all,” as well as “lord,” “master,” “owner.”

The text consists of four names and two words. The names of the gods are known to be used as epithets of the king -or the person being judged- as the king is expected to be recognized as a god after having passed through the process of the test of judgment successfully.Most probably it is said that all four persons mentioned are good, or beautiful and fair, or that they are lords each one of them, but without a similar case in mind it is better not to venture a translation.

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